4 Profitable Ways to Build Links to E-Commerce Websites

There had been much discussion on whether or not link building should be given importance in the coming years.

Repetitive questions have been asked on forums and Q&A sites if SEOs should stop building links for their websites.

My answer for those questions is complex. Yes and no.

Yes, because links are still valuable in the eyes of Google. The search engine giant uses it as a big factor in their search algorithm to determine the relevancy and authority of a website.

No, because we’re not only building links in this age of digital marketing but we’re earning them. Great content, positive user experience, as well as new, unique, and innovative brand experience will all help a website to earn brand recognition and acquire fresh links to its inner pages (deep links).

1. E-Commerce Link Building

First, you should always think of your brand’s reputation when performing link acquisition, as it will always be a big factor in motivating yourself and doing the hard work that content and link building requires you.

There will be many e-commerce brands (small and large) in Asia-Pacific alone, that will be built in the next four to five years as forecasted by experts, which is for sure will exponentially grow over the decades to come.

Today, I’ll be sharing a few simple tips on how to build links to your website and continuously earn them from the right pages that are ranking or will potentially rank in search results.

2. Ranking Highly Converted Forum Threads

Forum marketing has always been one of the effective forms of link building, even after Penguin took its position in the search game. Its ability to drive relevant and targeted visitors to a website is one of its strengths and the reason why webmasters and bloggers are still investing in it.

I always love forums because they send continuous referral visits and links to a particular website.

Here are some ways to find forums that are highly valued in your industry:

Do a Google search for customer-related search queries like “where to buy” baby shoes, and discover any forums that are listed down in the top spot of search results.

Screenshot taken September 8, 2014

Because these forums are already ranking in search results for keywords that your customers are using to find your products, potential breakthrough to your referral visits as well as to your assisted conversions is higher.

How to Participate in Forums

Target forum participants that are actively engaging in the community (use their # of daily/weekly posts, replies and their own threads as your base metrics). Get in touch with them on the forum board or other marketing channels like email and social networks.

Become the first one to answer questions that you know you can answer really well based on your experience and expertise (it is also very important to identify the best time people are engaging on the site).

3. Suppliers, Retailers or Manufacturers’ Resource Pages

I’m a fan of getting links from resource pages since it is one of the easiest and most productive ways to do link building these days. This is because resource pages are built to list down internal and external links under the same category (which if your brand is connected with, you can easily ask for a mention/link).

It does require some matching when looking for resource pages that will best fit to your website. If your brand is an e-commerce supplier or manufacturer, then look for retailers or manufacturers’ resource pages, or vice versa if you’re the former.

To get started with resource page link building, do a Google search for any of the following search terms (just simply add your keyword):

(intitle:links) OR (intitle:sites) OR (intitle:resources) “home design” “retailer” OR “manufacturer” OR “supplier”

Filter out results that are irrelevant, poorly designed, and have low domain authority (DA). Create a list of the filtered resource pages.

If you offer several categories of products in your website, then you can populate your list of link targets by prospecting resource pages for each of your category. So if you’re selling home improvement products, then you can search for resource pages under paint category and links pages under home design toolkit category. Do the same method to all of your product categories to create a huge list of backlink opportunities.

4. Link Reclamation

When your website started to build its own brand in your industry, one of the best ways to consistently earn links from your content marketing and branding efforts is to track existing, non-linking brand or product mentions.

Given that your brand is already familiar to the linker, you have high chances of earning a link from your outreach.

Here are some assets from your brand that you need to track in a regular basis:

Past and current logos

Unique images of your products

Data-based visuals produced by your content marketing team (e.g. infographics)

Cover photos of research of your brand (e.g. front pages of whitepapers)

Quotes by subject experts from your company

More ways to help your website earn links from relevant blogs/sites in your industry:

Publish at least one content asset on your e-commerce blog that can be considered the most educational, informative, and comprehensive search results for the target keyword you want to rank for.

Strategize internal linking on your site to help converting but non-linked pages to rank high in search results (this approach will help your site earn targeted search traffic in a consistent basis).

There are a lot more ways to build links to an e-commerce website, but the most effective methods are the common ones you haven’t tried before. Do you have anything to add? Please share your ideas in the comments below.